Jess Walter - The Financial Lives Of the Poets

with your retirement accounts, or your kids’

college funds, or when you happen to catch them

on TV (all fancy cuffs and high collars)-

they all sound so smart. They all sound so right.

Their true currency is surety and they’re so sure

of their surety-but wait, the bull and the bear

can’t both be right, how can the liquidity position

and the long-term hold both be sure bets, and yet

these guys are always so sure-and this sure expert

says if there’s a flaw in the mechanics, dare I say-

his voice begins to quaver-there’s surely a flaw in our

entire system of lightly regulated capital generation

and investment, which would mean there’s surely a flaw

in nothing less than humanity itself-and here

the financial expert’s voice breaks even more

and he has to clear his throat and-surely he is crying,

surely we’ve let him down, we humans, and he’s

sure sobbing, devolving into a socialist, a fiscal atheist

right before our Dolby-sure-sound public radio ears.

And that’s when I hear the unsure voice of Mother Teresa

praying to the God Who So Selfishly Refused To Speak

To Her (the god of angry middle school girls

the deity of ladies who get stuck with lunch bills

the lord of stubborn brothers and jilted lovers

the petty pouting feuding god of hurt feelings)

and I say, in Teresa’s rat-infested, leper-loving lilt

this wise, weary prayer-Dear Father, if you’re out there

and if you can hear me, protect us from harm and by all means

comfort the weak and the poor, the wageless and

homeless, hungry, foreclosed, wandering, woefully

afflicted, but if you get just a minute after that

could you please please please

spite the living fuck out of this asshole-I mean it

go old-school Job on this rich fat fuck

this expert who apparently slept through

history class, through every relationship

anyone was ever in, and through the entire

twentieth century, this sure dickhead who

has only now discovered that there is

a goddamned flaw in us all.”

T HEN BEA KISSES ME.

And how did I get here, on this front porch, among strewn leaves and half-hulled chestnuts, endangering fifteen years of mostly solid marriage by accepting a sweet kiss from a tall blond drug dealer’s moll? A quick retrace of my steps doesn’t exactly illuminate (took senile dad to doctor; got soul-crushing job offer for sixteen grand a year; went to Chuck-the-wife-thief’s lumber store; erratically purchased eleven hundred dollars’ worth of wood; got a call from Drug Dealer Dave suggesting I meet him at Bea’s apartment; drove here listening to infuriating financial expert on NPR; rang Bea’s doorbell, small-talked about her cool English major bookshelf; came outside with her so she could smoke; found myself telling her that she shouldn’t go out with Dave the Drug Dealer because, well, he’s a drug dealer; went on to add that she should find a nice sensitive poet boy rather than…)

Bang. Bea leans over and kisses me.

She pulls away and touches her mouth. Giggles. “Sorry,” she says. “I kiss people. It’s like…my thing.” Her mouth is lovely, sitting in a narrow cat-like jaw beneath that roof of blond hair. We’ve just had a short, sweet kiss and I don’t even know if there was anything sexual about it except that it was on the lips and her hand was on my jaw when she delivered it. No, it was definitely an in-between kiss, not exactly mustached-Aunt-Martha-at-the-train-station, but probably not meant to be erotic either; and probably because of that, it’s incredibly erotic, and I flush like a teenager and gulp and swoon and feel in every other way achingly heartbreakingly young-which is all any of us can ever hope to feel from a kiss.

“You’re sweet,” she says, “Jamie’s right about you.” And then she puts her cigarette out on the stoop and long-strides over to a garbage can to toss the butt. Her skirt swirls as she walks-my god, she’s got to have four feet of legs under there-and when she turns to face me her eyes are red and teary and I can’t imagine what I’ve said that’s made her tear up. “I’m not going out with Dave.”

“Oh. I assumed-”

“I know he wants to,” she says, “but we’re just friends. I was having money problems and Jamie introduced us, and he agreed to pay part of my rent if he could have his meetings in my place. Dave’s paranoid. Thinks his house is bugged.”

“Oh.” And I’m so smitten it’s all I can do to not offer her money right now, to get her out of this arrangement with Dave the paranoid Drug Dealer, but I have no money to give that isn’t already tied up in drug deals or in treated lumber.

She gives a wry, half-smile. “And there aren’t nearly enough sensitive poet boys.”

That’s when Dave pulls up, in a Nissan Maxima exactly the year and color of mine. This makes me feel creepy in some way I can’t quite name.

I wonder for a moment if Dave was parked down the block and saw the kiss, or if he can simply tell from my flushed face that Bea has kissed me. Maybe we’ll go for a drive now and Dave will whack me, or, being a lawyer drug dealer, sue me. Or maybe this was all a setup and Dave has been taking pictures of Bea kissing me and will use them as blackmail. If so, the joke’s on him: I’m not sure my soon-to-be-straying wife will care.

“There he is.” Dave is wearing his tieless suit again. “How you doin’, Slippers?”

“Good.” I stand and we shake hands.

“Isn’t this a beautiful fall day?” Dave asks.

It is, I have to admit, beautiful: crisp and sunny and the edges of the world seem sharpened by the depth of the sky. This fall is achingly clear.

Dave looks over at Bea, who has lit another cigarette. “How’s school?”

“Fucked up.”

“Doesn’t matter. You make it to classes anyway.”

She flips him off.

“Lovely. Everyone’s so cynical these days.” Dave walks over, grabs her cigarette, takes a long, flaring drag and hands it back to her. She’s taller than he is. When did girls get so tall? Dave says, in smoke: “Whole world’s cynical.” Then he stares up at the white edge of the horizon. “I was just listening to this refreshing investment banker on NPR-”

“Hey, I heard that guy.”

“Wasn’t that great? Amazing to hear one of those guys be so honest and real, just say, ‘Man, we messed it all up.’ It made me feel…I don’t know…hopeful.”

“Really?” I ask. “It made me mad.”

“No, I thought it was cool. I sat there thinking, shit, what am

I doing? All of this striving? Worrying? This shit with the bar? What does any of it mean if I die tomorrow?”

Great. My drug dealer is getting religion. Hopefully not before I get my dope. “Here’s what I thought,” I say. “Here’s some guy who made millions off what he now admits was a corrupt financial system, probably spent twenty years living on champagne and strippers, and now, when the whole Ponzi pyramid falls on the rest of us, he gets religion? Why do people never get religion before the champagne and strippers?”

Dave stares at me. “You’re even more cynical than she is. You guys are quite a pair.”

I can’t tell if he’s teasing me, or if he knows about our kiss. I look over at Bea, who leans against the garbage can, her chin pointed down disapprovingly. Her mouth makes a little pink heart, the mouth that just kissed me…and again, I feel the teenage flush but when-

My waist starts buzzing.

“You ready, Slippers? We gotta go pick Jamie up first.”

I glance down at the buzzing phone on my waist. It’s the boys’ school. Someone must be sick. Of all the stupid omens…“Uh…I might have to postpone.”